The love (and hate) of Northern Illinois in Orange

Northern Illinois was a warm, fuzzy story Â¿ or maybe not

You know who, for much of Tuesday night, also looked like they wished Northern Illinois hadn’t been sent to the Orange Bowl by some mystifying computer calculation?

Florida State, that’s who.

It struggled mightily in the game it couldn’t win even for winning. Not really. Not when 15th-ranked Northern Illinois, champion of the Mid-American Conference, caused a national referendum on the bowl system just by showing up.

Their team had a better comeback yet. It wasn’t just that it hung close so much of the night. It was how the game flowed.

FSU coach Jimbo Fisher showed what he thought about Northern Illinois’ defense on the Seminoles’ first possession by going on fourth-and-1 from his own 41-yard line. Out of character? Florida State only had four fourth-down attempts all year.

It got that first down.

It got barely enough of everything else, thanks in good part to some bold Northern Illinois coaching. The way to neutralize better talent on the other side was with surprises.

Northern Illinois had never run a fake punt this year? It did so in Tuesday’s first quarter for a 35-yard gain. That led to a field goal and a 7-3 game for most of the first half.

It had never tried an onside kick? It did so early in the second half and recovered that, too.

Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch came in with credentials as the Mid-American Conference offensive player of the year. That translated into him being a workhorse, as he either threw or ran the ball on 27 of their 29 first-half plays (a run and fake punt were the others).

But it wasn’t until early in the second half that translated into some offense. There was a reason for that.

“They’re fast,’’ Lynch said earlier in the week of Florida State’s defense. “They’re physical. But they haven’t seen anything like our offense.”

The real issue was Northern Illinois hadn’t seen anything like Florida State’s second-ranked defense. The best defense the Huskies played this season was Iowa’s 46th-ranked defense. It lost that game.

It couldn’t budge the Florida State defense in the first half. It had four first downs for the entire half. But by early in the second half, Lynch had passed 17 times (completing five) for 52 yards. He then uncorked one for 55 yards.

On that same drive, he ran for 22 yards. That nearly doubled the 28 yards he’d run for all game. He then threw for a touchdown to make it 17-10.

That’s when Northern Illinois tried, and indeed recovered, the onside kick. If you could have stopped it right there, it told how decent a night this had become for Northern Illinois.

They were the David of college football, the small team that earned the big time, the school from the MAC representing all the littles out there. It didn’t matter at that moment whether they deserved to be there or not.

Florida State was lucky, too, it wasn’t playing this uninspired against some of the other teams on display this bowl stretch. No. 8 Georgia, No. 9 LSU, No. 10 South Carolina and No. 11 Oklahoma all took lesser bowls.

At some point, Florida State fans had to feel happy about that. Because while they were piling up impressive stats — 328 yards of total offense in the first half — it wasn’t completing much of anything.

“We plan on wearing them down,’’ Lynch said before the game. “In the fourth quarter, we plan to have them on their knees.”

Well, it didn’t quite work like that. Florida State scored on the first play of the fourth quarter to go up 24-10. And so what had been uninspired play by the Seminoles at least wouldn’t be a disaster, too.

At some point, though, Florida State’s talent had to take hold. And it did. Even if it took a while and wasn’t in a way that left Seminoles fans too happy.

“I love MAC football,’’ Herbstreit had said before this game, “but to put them in the BCS is an absolute joke to the rest of those teams that are more deserving. I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion.”